Abrupt Hollywood Ending to a 4-Star Season

Clay Millican, Parts Plus Top Fuel Team Finish 3rd in Points After 2nd-Round Upset at Pomona

POMONA,
CALIF., Nov. 11, 2018: For Parts
Plus Top Fuel driver Clay Millican, Pomona, Calif., turned out to be a
Hollywood beginning but not the blockbuster ending he was looking for. But
nothing can take away from what has been a 4-star year for Millican, crew chief
David Grubnic and the entire Parts Plus/Stringer Performance crew.

Over
the weekend at the Auto Club NHRA Finals, Millican returned to Pomona, where
his best season in Top Fuel yet got underway quickly—literally. During February’s
Winternationals, the Parts Plus Top Fuel dragster recorded a run that would help set the tone for rest of the
season: 3.628 seconds@322.04 mph, earning Millican his first No. 1 qualifier of
the year and resetting his own elapsed time record of 3.631 achieved last year
in St. Louis.

To
help put things in perspective, Millican had earned 10 No. 1 qualifiers during
his entire Top Fuel career entering the 2018 campaign—the Parts Plus driver doubled
that this season.

“Right from the start, I told everybody that my crew
chief, David Grubnic, runs this car differently than anybody else out here—'Grubby’
is just one of a kind,” Millican says. “I feel like other teams were trying to
catch up with us all season. And, of course, we were trying to catch Stevie
[Torrence], but turns out nobody was going to catch him.”

The
gap between No. 1 Torrence and No. 2 Millican was not insurmountable when the Countdown
to the Championship kicked off. But then Torrence recorded 5 straight wins to practically
seal the deal early and deny Millican and the nationwide viewing audience on
FOX Sports a suspenseful Finals showdown. It wasn’t impossible for Millican to
surge ahead on Sunday, but it almost would have taken an act of a higher power
to prevent Torrence from making it to the track to make it happen.

Undaunted,
Millican came out Friday night swinging like Dodgers slugger Justin Turner in
the home-run session, launching hard and keeping the header flames high above
the rear wing all the way down the track en route to a blazing-quick 3.702@327.18
mph, temporarily flying the Parts Plus pilot to the number-one spot. Millican's
Q2 incremental times: 60ft-0.824 sec.; 330ft-2.105; and 660ft-2.972/292.52 mph.

On
Saturday, Grubby didn’t
let up in Q3 as Millican was on a good-looking pass until the Parts Plus dragster began losing power and coasted to a 3.8
finish.

Each
team jockeying for position in Sunday’s field would pull out all the stops in Q4, the last
qualifying session of the season—and, as it turns out, also one of the
quickest.

Leah
Pritchett’s 3.631 in Q4 tied for
the second-quickest pass in history behind Millican’ s 3.628 national record
set at the aforementioned season-opener.

Pritchett and Millican were part of an elite club of
3.60 Pomona fast-trackers in Q4 as the Parts Plus dragster ran a 3.681, Brittany Force recorded a 3.667, and Blake
Alexander enjoyed a career-best 3.692 in a remarkably quick session. Millican
would eventually be put to the test with Alexander the following day.

Although
his 11th No. 1 top spot in ’18 eluded him, No. 4 qualifier
Millican was all smiles moments after Saturday’s session ended, answering
succinctly when asked by a FOX Sports reporter on the air how he would sum up
the Parts Plus team’s
season. Beaming at the camera, Millican proudly bellowed, “Awesome!”

The popular Tennessean went on to thank Parts Plus and
our strategic manufacturer partners who have helped support Millican and his
team for years, along with the Stringer Performance crew’s other sponsors. Clay
seemed to have a twinkle in his eye, as if
he knew the Parts Plus car was going to do something special on Sunday—and it almost happened.

While
he qualified 4th, Millican was nonetheless in a challenging spot to open
eliminations Sunday, as he lined up against his buddy Terry McMillen, whose
similar surnames have confounded many an announcer over the last few years.

There
was no confusion here, though, as the Parts Plus dragster went straight down
the groove with a nice-looking pass for the win. Officially, Millican’s 3.748@327.35 mph topped
McMillen’s 3.823@313.88 mph.

Millican
would give up lane choice, though, to Alexander the Suddenly Great, who was emerging
as a dark-horse favorite to win the event. This thrilling side-by-side race would
come down to a matter of seconds—milliseconds, actually...0.0215 to be exact.

Alexander seized the starting-line advantage and battled with the Parts Plus dragster all the way to
the finish line, taking the win on a holeshot to end Millican’s dream season earlier than
expected.

But
what a season to wake up to and reflect upon: 2 back-to-back Wally trophies (giving
Millican 3 total), 10 No. 1 qualifiers, and 18 top-4 qualifiers out of 24
races, and tons of deserved exposure that goes with those kinds of accomplishments.

The
2018 NHRA Mello Yello Series was definitely a season to remember for the team,
Parts Plus and all our manufacturer partners.

“I can’t say enough about this team or my sponsors,”
Millican says. “Parts Plus has stood by me when things weren’t going so good,
and together with all their great manufacturers, we went to work with the best
parts in the business to make a serious
run at the championship—no
small feat for a single-car team. I think about the back-to-back wins at Topeka
and Chicago—that was incredible, and proved this Parts Plus team was for real.

“And all those No. 1 qualifiers—wow, we had a bunch of
‘em, along with plenty of top 5s,
which really—that’s
our first goal every weekend—so we did great there. We just gotta work on
turning those No. 1s into wins. My hat’s off to Grubby and the team for putting
me in a position to win every week. I think I said this last year at the end of
Pomona, and it turned out to be true: This team’s gonna be tough to beat next
year, that’s for sure.”

Torrence
went on to officially clinch the championship early Sunday and put an
exclamation point on his season with his sixth-straight event win—becoming the
first driver to win all 6 Countdown playoff races—beating Tony Schumacher, who
nudged past Millican for the No. 2 points spot in the final rankings posted
below.

Top
Fuel Point Standings (top 10) following the 54th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals
at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, the final of 24 events in the NHRA Mello Yello
Drag Racing Series.